


Add a Link and See it Grow

by ej_writer



Category: Stranger Things (TV 2016)
Genre: Board Games, Found Family, Harringrove Week of Love 2021, Implied/Referenced Child Abuse, M/M, Minor Injuries
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-02-16
Updated: 2021-02-16
Packaged: 2021-03-18 10:55:01
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 7,305
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29488620
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ej_writer/pseuds/ej_writer
Summary: Date night turns into game night with the kids.
Relationships: Billy Hargrove & The Party, Billy Hargrove/Steve Harrington
Comments: 6
Kudos: 37
Collections: Harringrove Week of Love





	Add a Link and See it Grow

**Author's Note:**

> Today’s the last day of the Harringrove Week of Love! The final prompt I chose was Found Family, though the story acts as more of a prerequisite to the found family. Read this here or on tumblr @thehairingrove ! Comments are greatly appreciated!!

“Are you serious right now Nancy?” 

It was 7:30 at night when Steve heard his doorbell ring and, upon answering it, was met with a swarm of middle schoolers rushing into his house. He had plans to go out to the quarry with Billy in like, a half hour, he could _not_ afford to be the babysitter. 

“I’m sorry, Steve. My mom was supposed to watch the kids but she had to go out so she asked me to babysit, but I already told Joyce and Jon I’d help them plan Will's birthday party and it’s only a few days away now and-“ Nancy talked about a thousand miles a minute as she tried to justify dumping the brats on him.

“Whatever, it’s, fine.” It wasn’t, but it wasn’t worth arguing over either. “Aren’t they old enough to watch themselves at this point?” 

Nancy didn’t even respond to that, just gave him a stern look that said ‘you’re watching these kids no matter what, get over it.’ She crossed her arms and squinted at him and, even if it didn’t really matter if he agreed, his resolve broke. “Alright, fine.” 

She smiled and thanked him before hurrying back to Jonathan’s still running car. Steve sighed and braced himself before turning around to go back inside. The brats were known for wreaking havoc in a matter of minutes, and he wasn't looking to let them destroy his parents’ house. 

In the five minutes he was outside they’d already raided the fridge of all of his pop, added the leaf to his dining table (how did they even know where that thing was?), had game pieces and boards thrown all over the place, and made a stack of their bags in the corner of his living room. 

“Wait a second, is this a sleepover?” Steve groaned at all of the overenthusiastic nods he received. “Where am I supposed to put all of you little shits?” 

Dustin shrugged. “You have enough rooms in this place to house the whole neighborhood. I think you’ll be fine.” 

“Well, since nobody felt the need to run this by me first, I’m already busy. Can you dipshits handle yourselves for like, two hours?” 

The look on Mikes face perfectly mirrored the one his sister had given Steve at the door. “Dude, Nancy will kill you if she found out you left us here alone.” 

“Not if I kill her first for dumping all of you on me.” The threat had still stuck, she absolutely would kill Steve. There was no way he could get away with leaving them unattended.

He figured he could just call Billy and cancel, but that was really the last thing he wanted to do. He tried to come up with some compromise, but with all the kids pulling up chairs to his dining table with intentions of staying all night, he didn’t really have much of a choice in the matter. 

Dialing Billy’s number into the kitchen phone, he walks around the corner into the bathroom, shutting himself in as best he can around the phone's cord in an attempt at having some semblance of privacy from the six sets of prying ears in the next room, but he hears nothing from the other end.

He let it ring a few more times before he gave up, wrapping the cord back up and hanging the phone back in its slot. This wasn’t going to go over well. 

Because it wasn’t like he could just be like ‘hey, I have to go do this, be back in a few’ when what he had been planning on doing was going on a date with Billy Hargrove. They were sneaking around behind the kids' backs, so that just wasn’t a luxury they had.

But Billy wouldn’t answer his phone, so he couldn’t explain the situation to him either, and now Steve was backed into a corner, and exponentially screwed.

At first, he was trying to just stay out of the kids’ hair, hover in the corner while they did their thing just to make sure they didn’t get it of hand, but he was feeling too jittery and nervous, so he pulled up one of the thousand extra dining chairs his mother kept around for dinner parties and joined in their stupid game. 

For once, they were playing normal people games instead of that role playing thing he couldn't wrap his head around, so he could actually understand what was happening enough to participate. 

Not that that meant he ever won, being outsmarted by these kids was his specialty. Round after round they ran circles around him, and he was getting frustrated enough he was considering making them sleep outside. 

He was about to throw his cards down and quit for what was probably the tenth time already when he heard the telltale sound of Billy’s Camaro pulling into his driveway. 

That was really bad. He’d stood Billy up, and he’d be pissed, he couldn’t let him just barge in here and make a scene in front of the kids. Because not only would that mean they knew Steve was _not_ crushing on some imaginary girl or whatever he’d made up to thwart their suspicions, but that he was with Billy Hargrove of all people. They’d never let it go. 

He shot a quick look at Max, who no doubt would’ve been able to recognize the sound of her own brother's car, hoping to somehow communicate to her to keep these other assholes occupied while he dealt with this. He was pretty sure Max already knew about them anyways. 

Forfeiting again, he got up from the table and hurried towards the front doors. 

Will called after him with a sympathetic, “It’s just a game, Steve!” which thankfully meant they either hadn’t heard or hadn’t recognized the sound of Billy’s car. 

Holding up the pack of camels he always kept in his pocket, he turned around to face the kids, backing towards the door still. “Just need a smoke break.” 

That seemed to appease them, and they went back to what they were doing. He practically ran the rest of the way to the door, as he opened and closed it before they could see the boy on the stoop. 

Billy was standing there probably about to lay on the doorbell, something he always did just to drive Steve crazy, and seemed surprised at the way he came all the way outside and shut the door behind himself. “Listen, I’m on babysitting duty, so I kind of can’t do this right now.” 

At the same time Billy’s face fell, Steve felt his heart drop into his stomach. This wasn’t about their rendezvous, turning up at Steve’s house usually meant he needed something, and judging from the way his hands were stuffed deep into his pockets and the way he was worrying his lip between his teeth, it was something important. “Whatever, Harrington. I’ll get out of your hair.“ 

“That’s not what I meant.” Steve reached out and put his hand on Billy’s arm to get his attention. “I’m sorry. I want you to stay, I just, I needed you to know they were here.” The additional so you didn’t out us and ruin our lives forever went unsaid, but Billy knew the implications of being caught by the kids. 

“I need your first-aid kit“ It was hard for him, asking for help, but these days it was something he needed a lot of.

“Okay.” 

Without another word he opened the door and led Billy inside, making him kick off his muddy biker boots before following him up the stairs to where he kept the band aid kit in his bathroom. One of the perks of having a big house was that the kids, from where they were in the dining room, couldn’t see the door, and only heard them go up the steps. 

This had become routine for them, Billy showing up at his door in need of a little TLC, and Steve desperate to give it to him, but up to this point they’d been able to evade the kids. He didn’t think it would honestly be all that bad if they knew, Billy’s sister was among them and _probably_ wouldn’t let her friends run too wild with the information, but Billy had made him swear on his life he’d never let them, or anyone else for that matter, find out about it. 

Of course he understood that. There was a reason this kept happening, these nights when Billy would show up at his door in need of assistance, and that reason, who’s name happened to be Neil Hargrove, would undoubtedly kill the both of them were he ever to catch word that his son was dating Steve Harrington. 

Steve had the displeasure of meeting Neil in person only once in late December, when he’d dropped Max off at her house after a Christmas party at the Byers. Being that he was such a responsible and caring father, or at least that’s what he was for the public eye, he just _had_ to meet the boy who was watching his daughter. 

Steve’d been beyond unsettled by the unnecessary firmness of his handshake, the distant look behind his so obviously practiced smile, the way Billy, with his arm in a cast for reasons he wouldn’t tell anyone, loomed in the corner as Neil did his interrogation. 

When he was satisfied with the answers he’d been given, sure that Steve wasn’t carting the kids around because he was a creep or something, he’d let him go with a slap to the shoulder that was a little too hard to be friendly, and made Billy, maybe as a show of some sort of old fashioned respect, walk him back to his car. 

“Did he do that to you?” Maybe it was because his experience with his own father had made it easier to recognize, but Steve was pretty sure he had a good idea of what was going on here. 

Billy kept his eyes downcast and his shoulders squared, defensive in a way that was distinctly un-Billy. The broken arm must have been preventing his fighting instincts from taking over, or maybe it was the guilt from already beating the shit out of Steve once. “Maybe.” 

That was enough of an answer for him. “Look, if you ever need anything, just like, I don’t know, come find me or something, man.” 

Billy’s head snapped up to look at him. Steve could practically see the gears turning in his head as he tried to think of some response, but that had gotten to him. He kept his lips pressed in a flat line, and stared at Steve like he just grew a second head. 

“I’m sorry for lying to you, just, my door is always open, or whatever.” It was extremely awkward, Steve offering help to the boy who’d literally just beat the shit out of him and concussed him like a month ago, but he could see through him. 

The scar in his eyebrow didn’t come from their fight, nor did the cast on his arm. Seeing the way Neil acted, the saccharine smile he wore as he made subtle threats on him when he literally did nothing but drive his daughter around, he had enough to figure out that those injuries had been from what Billy had faced once he came home that night. 

Billy hadn’t said anything, just scoffed and turned around to go back into his house, but a week later he showed up at Steve’s house, having gotten the address off of their sort of mutual friend Tommy, with a broken nose and bled all over his living room carpet, and the rest was history.   
  


Steve walked him into the bathroom and sat him down on the toilet seat, popping open the first-aid kit where it sat on the tiled counter. “Where’re you hurt?” 

A nervous habit of his, Billy was chewing on the side of his thumb nail. His gaze flickered between Steve’s face and the framed painting behind him on the wall. “S’my ribs.” 

Steve got him to shrug out of the two different jackets he was wearing, his first winter in the Midwest had proved to be far too cold for a Cali-raised boy like Billy, and pull the Henley shirt he had on over his head. The damage hidden underneath was enough to make him sick to his stomach. 

Reaching out, Steve gingerly touched the deep purple bruises littering the other boy's chest and ribs. He felt breathless, this was by far the worst he’d ever seen it. “Jesus, Bills.” 

Billy wasn’t very good at accepting sympathy from others. It made him feel all squeamish to be fussed over, and Steve was the king of fussing over him. He muttered, “Think there’s a cut towards the back.” 

Steve wrapped his fingers around Billy’s forearm and gently pushed his arm up over his head to inspect the damage, and sure enough, there was a gash about 6 inches long on his left side. “What the hell did he do to you?” 

Billy sniffles, looks away and says, like it’s nothing, “Steel-toes break the skin easier.” 

Every time they did this, Steve’s heart broke into a million little pieces. The nonchalance of it all was the worst part, the way it was so normal for Billy to have his father kick him until his ribs were bruised black and bleeding, it made him so sad to see his Billy that way. 

He let Billy put his arm down and crossed his own arms over his chest, “You’re gonna need stitches.” 

“You know how to sew.” Another shot right in his heart, Steve didn’t know how much of this he could handle. 

“Barely. And this is completely different.” Steve stepped forward and put his hand on the side of Billy’s face, keeping him from looking away again to stare at that stupid painting on the wall. “Don’t wanna hurt you.” 

“I can take it, Stevie. Either you do it or I will.” If Billy gave an ultimatum, he meant it. 

He definitely didn’t know how to sew, it was a skill considered too feminine to be taught to a son despite its usefulness, so he never learned how, but if Steve didn’t agree he would’ve very much done it and hurt himself a thousand times more in the process just to prove a point 

So Steve reluctantly did it, made Billy hold his arm over his head and turn to face the other wall so he could see it better. Not that he was an overly emotional person, or maybe he just wouldn’t admit he was, but the sight before him put tears in his eyes. 

Billy caught that, and despite the swell of nervousness in his own chest as he saw Steve threading a needle from out of the kit, he offered comfort to his boyfriend. 

“Only a few more months before I’m outta there, then we won’t have to worry about this shit any more.” Billy would turn 18 in June, just under three months from now, but when he showed up at Steve’s door bloodied and bruised every other day, that long stretch of time offered no comfort. 

It wouldn’t be as easy as Billy seemed to think it was to leave. He wouldn’t have any money, the Camaro wasn’t in his name, so he wouldn’t have any way to get around, and he didn’t even know where he would stay yet. That was all hypothetical for _if_ he’d even be able to leave too. 

With an abusive father constantly looming over his shoulder and keeping tabs on him, he’d know he was going to leave and try to stop it at all costs. It was only a matter of time before he started trying to manipulate Billy into staying. 

It clearly didn’t have the desired effect on Steve. Billy’d even offered his assurances with a smile, but his boyfriends face stayed grim as he wiped at the cut with an alcohol pad so he could start to try to stitch it shut. 

They stayed silent after that, while Steve tried to steady his shaking hands for long enough to get the needle in and out of Billy’s skin without hurting him too bad. The only break in the silence was the occasional gasp from Billy when Steve made another hole in his skin, or the noise drifting up from when the kids started yelling downstairs. 

After a few more times in and out he was able to tie it off, the sutures were sort of crude, but were doing their job, and he made Billy move his arm all around to make sure they wouldn’t tear right through his skin. Once he was appeased, he made him put a new shirt on, the other one stained with his blood would have to be washed.

Billy stood up and wrapped his arms around Steve’s waist. “I’m gonna be okay baby.” 

Steve reached his arms around the back of Billy’s neck and pressed their foreheads together. “I know but-“

Cutting him off with a quick kiss, Billy interjected. “It doesn’t matter about him as long as I have you.” Another peck to his lips. “Love you.” 

It hardly did anything to cheer Steve up or comfort him, but there wasn’t anything that could when every night, he sent his boyfriend back into the arms of a monster. He sighed and ran his fingers through the long hair at the back of Billy’s neck. “I love you too.” 

Neither of them knew how much time had passed when Billy pulled away to grab his jacket off of the counter. Shrugging the layers back onto his shoulders, he stuffed his hands into the pockets of his leather jacket again. “I should go. The nerd herd’s gonna wonder where we went.” 

“I want you to stay.” Steve kissed him one more time. “Not gonna let you go back to him yet.” 

Billy looked like he wanted to protest, but Steve must’ve been looking as sad as he felt, because Billy sighed and gave in. “Fine. But your kids aren’t going to be too happy about that.” 

“They’ll be fine.” Billy always seemed to underestimate just how much the kids liked him.

It was true that they hadn’t been his biggest fans at first, but when they first started doing this, Steve made him swear he’d apologize to them, and he did. 

They were smart kids, they understood how the situation had looked when he got pissed, all of them hiding from him in a strangers house, and they understood the implications too of him begging Max to leave with him and his arm being broken literally the next day when she hadn’t. 

It wasn’t immediate forgiveness, they were pretty wary around him until they felt he’d done enough to prove that he meant it when he apologized, but they’d all more or less accepted it by now. 

Because he hadn’t stopped after just _saying_ sorry. The words themselves never meant much to him at all, what with the situation he grew up in, so he tried to _show_ them he was sorry. 

Which was how he had become the secondary chauffeur after Steve, taking more than just Max home after trips to the movies or the arcade, and consequently how he had started helping them sneak around. 

More than a few times he’d helped them smuggle Eleven out of her dad's cabin, because he understood feeling trapped, before he had his own car Neil had been able to keep him under 24/7 surveillance. He always covered for Lucas too, driving him home first before anyone else, and when Neil wanted to know who Max had been with, he’d lie and say it was just Dustin or El. After what happened it felt like the least he could do, but Steve was right, by now, they were pretty much over it.

Either way, he didn’t exactly want to have to explain away why he and Steve had disappeared upstairs for the last hour, hour and half. They might forgive him for his stupid outburst, but he couldn’t be sure where they drew the line. 

Steve smiled at him and wrapped his fingers around Billy’s wrist, pulling him out of the bathroom and back through the hallway to the stairs. “Just follow my lead.” 

Any semblance of a plan was lost when they made it back to the kitchen, Billy leaning in the doorway while Steve announced his presence, and they saw Eleven washing blood off of her hands in the sink. 

There were some things Billy knew he’d never understand about these kids, Steve had made him promise he wouldn’t ask questions even though that was what had got them into a fight in the first place, so, despite his confusion, he didn’t even try to ask. 

Not even when Steve put his hands on his hips and reprimanded her. “Oh, you were _not_ spying on me.” 

She smiled coyly. “I was.” 

Billy felt the blood drain out of his face, felt his heartbeat skyrocket as he and Steve exchanged a look of fear. Steve stuttered and started trying to explain. “Listen you guys-“

Dustin cut him off, always overly eager to complain. “She won’t tell us anything.”

Nodding, Mike agreed. “She says it’s an ‘invasion of your privacy’.” He used air quotes around the last part as if spying on people in their own homes wasn’t exactly that. 

The fear on Steve's face shifted into anger as he pointed his finger in Mike's face. “That’s because it is. I _told_ you little shits a thousand times: no spying.” 

Lucas interjected, agreeing with his friends. “What’s it matter if she won’t tell us anyways?” 

Max fixed him with a deadly look and scoffed. “It matters because she didn’t want to and you _made_ her. Why _should_ she tell you what she saw?” Typically, Max would be on Lucas’ side, but they must’ve been fighting again. 

Billy, watching the scene unfold while leaning on the door frame, clicked his tongue against the back of his teeth and announced. “Seems like I walked into something.” He turned to walk away and called over his shoulder. “Catch ya ‘round, Harrington.” 

Before he could get away, Steve grabbed him by the back of his jacket and tugged, stopping him dead in his tracks. “No way. You’re not leaving me to deal with this by myself.” 

“Your children aren’t my responsibility.” He reminded him, but he had no actual intentions of actually leaving and they both knew that. 

The kids hadn’t understood at first why Steve got along with Billy after he’d been the one to be beat up, so, to put it in a way that made sense to the brats, they pretended to argue so it seemed like they were only begrudgingly hanging out, and so far, they hadn’t seen through it. 

Steve had a retort ready, but Dustin beat him to it. The kids were constantly rubbing it in Billy’s face that they’d turned him into a babysitter too. “Yeah, we kind of are.” 

Lucas, obviously only trying to get some sort of points towards Max’s forgiveness, agreed. “Especially since one of us is your totally awesome sister.” Max just rolled her eyes at his attempt. 

Realizing he was still holding onto Billy’s jacket, Steve pulled him back into the room and let go. “You’re staying.” He turned to Will and asked him like nothing had happened, “So what are we playing?” 

Unsurprisingly, the kids had developed tiny attention spans. They'd gotten quite the taste for crazy adventures, so unlike normal teenagers, activities like watching movies and playing truth or dare all night wouldn’t really do it for them. 

Since Steve had left, they’d apparently played through two different games and had been about to start a third before they decided to spy. 

Mike tells them, “We’ve narrowed it down to Uno and Monopoly.”

“Mike, Will, and Max vote Monopoly. Me, Lucas, and El vote Uno.” Dustin further explained, “We need a tie breaker.”

“I’m not any good at Monopoly. Too much counting.” Steve nudged Billy with his shoulder. “What do you think?” 

“Last time I played Monopoly I broke someone's nose, and I’m colorblind. Don’t think my vote counts.” Neither of those facts are particularly untrue, but the only reason Billy brings them up is because he’s still trying to deny that he’s their babysitter. 

Staying for Steve, whatever, that was fine, but playing board games with the little shits, that would be giving in, admitting that he wasn’t above hanging out with middle schoolers on a Friday night.

But he doesn’t get out of it, because with the excitement of all of the kids combined, Will pipes up. “Don’t worry, I am too! My mom put shapes on all the cards so I can tell the difference.” 

He hurries and fishes out the playing deck, bringing it straight to Billy to look through. “See! Reds are squares, greens are circles, yellows are stars, and blues are triangles!” 

Steve smirks at Billy, at the defeated look on his face. “Looks like you’re not getting out of this one, Hargrove.” 

All the dining chairs have to be shifted to make room for one more for Billy, and it’s sort of a tight squeeze with eight of them at a table for four, but it works. 

After a quick briefing of the rules for the older two boys and El alike, Mike, who insists very adamantly that he’s the only one present who knows how to properly shuffle cards, deals first. 

The play goes to the left starting with Will, and so on and so forth. 

The game isn’t, unpleasant, per se, but they don’t really get into it there for a while because they’re just not used to Billy being there. With Steve, they can talk to him like he’s one of them, he’s goofy enough to fit in and easy enough to make friends with. 

But Billy isn't like Steve. He’s the ‘too cool for this nerdy shit’ older guy, sitting all the way back in his chair, drinking a beer out of Steve’s fridge and uninterested in this whole game until his turn comes around and he deposits a card without a word. 

Or at least, that’s what it looks like to the kids, but on the inside, Billy’s freaking out. 

It’s not even that he doesn’t know what to say to them, it’s a matter of not knowing whether or not he _should_. Most of them hardly even tolerated him anyways, or at least it seemed that way to him, so he didn’t know how far he could go before they’d be put off. 

Could he get away with teasing them like Steve did? Was calling Mike on never saying Uno going to start a fight? He’s too worried about too much to focus on anything other than just playing by the rules and getting it over with. 

So turn after turn passes with an awkwardness hanging in the air, the trademark noisiness and competitiveness of the party just not there. They hardly even celebrate when the first game is over and the next one starts up.

Halfway through the second game, El taps Billy’s knee under the table. He looks at her like, what do you want kid, and she points for him to look down. She’s showing him her whole deck of cards, and returning him an equally as charged look that says, tell me what to do. 

He nods, and takes a second to assess the play, then taps on a card, a blue 3, and she plays it when her next turn comes. She beams at him, and scrunches his nose at her un-subtlety. 

They go for most of the rest of the game like that, but Dustin’s a little too observant and he catches them. It might've been El smiling everytime he helped her, or maybe Billy was a little too obvious in strategizing for her, because he narrows his eyes right at him and asks, “Are you two cheating?” 

El knows cheating means bad, but she was confused, she was just looking for help from someone who wasn’t one of her friends in case they got mad. She wants to lie, but that’s even worse than cheating, so tries to think of just anything, and she stutters around her answer, “I-uh”

Billy isn’t thrown off in the slightest though. “Yep.” He sneers at Dustin. “You gonna do somethin’ about it?” 

Max does do something about, unafraid to put her brother in his place. “Draw two cards, jerk.” 

“Fine.” He slides his gaze over to Steve, “But only if Stevie boy does too.” 

Steve, very obviously offended by the implication he was a cheater, asks, “What? Why me?” 

“Well, you were looking at curly's cards, weren't you?” Billy’d been watching Steve for the purpose of staring at his boyfriend, and noticed his gaze drifting to the boy beside hims’ cards right before he’d take his turn. 

“No.” He insists, but he's a little too hasty, and he flushes red. Billy thinks it’s cute, but the kids think it’s hilarious that he got caught too. 

It helps the kids to realize that Billy was all bark and no bite, and a surprisingly good sport, and the tension dissipates greatly after that interaction, and the game slowly starts to pick up the pace as they get into the swing of things. 

The hesitation that surrounds him really breaks though when Billy plays a draw four on Max, and gets it turned around on himself. Something about not being supposed to play one of if you have a card of the same color. 

He’s a little bugged by it, they hadn’t exactly run all the rules by him in too good of detail, and he had the added challenge of deciphering hand drawn shapes in a game about colors, but following Max’s example, the kids aren’t so timid about playing fair with Billy. 

It should be a good thing, the kids warming up to him, but with each joke cracked, each play made, Billy feels like he’s getting further away from the game and the kids. Like he’s sitting in the next room watching instead of being an active part of it. 

It’s just too much. He’s not used to being included like this. Because really, there’s a _very_ tangible difference between his usual getting plastered at a party, where people only liked him because he’s the hot new kid, and hanging out with some middle schoolers because they think him and his boyfriend are a couple of pushovers. 

He gets through another round without a problem, but in the last few turns, he discards his second to last card without saying Uno. Very enthusiastically, Will calls him on it, but he just isn't quite there enough to do anything about it. 

He just says “Oh.” and draws his two cards and the game keeps rolling. 

Sometime in the next few turns, when everyone’s distracted by a huge argument breaking out between Mike and Lucas about the validity of stacking plus twos, Max leans back and flicks a card at Steve’s head. 

He tips his own chair back on two legs to talk to her behind Dustin, who’s sat between them. “What the hey Max?” 

She just looks very pointedly to something as her response, but Steve can’t follow what and just gets confused. 

“What?” She rolls her eyes and motions vaguely towards the other side of the table where Billy’s just sort of sitting there, ignoring the fight that would normally rile him up in favor of picking at the corners of his nails. 

Steve knows by now what that means. He feels dumb for not noticing, but he’s got to do something about it, so he nods at Max and asks Billy, “Hey Hargrove, want a smoke break while they settle this?” 

“Sure.” He turns to El and gives her his deck of cards, tells her, “Hold these for me, would ya, squirt?” 

In a callback to the cheating debacle he adds with a wink, “No peeking.” as a false warning and a definite invitation to do so, and it makes her giggle. 

Steve warns the kids not to kill each other while he’s gone, though he gets mostly ignored while they shout over one another, and lets Billy go outside first, grabbing on his way out his dad's old coat hanging by the door to wrap around the both of their shoulders in the cold. 

As soon as they light up he tells him, “You know you don’t have to put up with them. If you don’t want to.” 

Billy blows the smoke slow out of his nose. “I know.” 

“And I’m sorry they ruined our date.”

“S’okay.” Billy doesn’t even look at him when he says it. 

His lack of engagement frustrates Steve, though he can’t really blame him. “Can you talk to me please, Billy?” 

He just shrugs and takes another drag. “What is there to talk about?”

Before Steve can answer him, the double doors swing open behind them and the boys separate, the coat slipping to the ground as they both turn to face the interruption.

It’s Dustin, looking hurried “Need you guys back in here.” 

“Why? What happened?” Steve’s voice sounds tight with worry. 

“Nothing. We just wanted to know if you had Jenga somewhere.” 

Steve looks so unbelievably done with him, standing with a hand on his hip and his cigarette still burning at his side. 

Billy teases him, “Aren’t you going to be a good mom and go help your kids?” and gets a middle finger right in his face, but Steve flicks his cigarette to the ground and follows Dustin like a good babysitter does.   
  


It doesn’t take very long for Jenga, which he did happen to have shoved in the back of a closet somewhere, to get boring too, so the kids, showing no signs of tiring because of all the junk food they’d stolen from Steve’s pantry, are trying to figure out what to do now. 

Mike is in charge of the discussion, starting off with prompting the rest, “So what’s next?” 

Dustin asks, ”Is there anything on the agenda we haven’t done yet?” 

“We could work on finishing the campaign?” Will offers. 

Lucas suggests, “Or maybe we could watch a movie?”

But Steve cuts them off there, before they start deliberating further. “How about none of the above? It is one o’clock in the morning. You assholes have to go to bed sometime.” 

“We’re not tired.” El tells him.

“Yeah, and I thought we were old to look after ourselves.” Max agrees, her snark making her sound a lot like her brother. 

“My house, my rules, and I’m not letting you stay up all night just so I can get angry phone calls from your parents for sending you all home without any sleep.” 

Dustin, thinking he has it in good enough with Steve, whines, “But _Steeeeve_.” 

“No buts! You brats want to stay here all night, you’ll go to sleep.” He waits for emphasis, “Now, preferably.” 

  
Six grumpy kids grumbling about unfair rules and stupid babysitters, angry footsteps stomping on carpeted stairs, doors slamming all through the hallway on the second floor, and they’re out of his hair for the rest of the night. 

Before he walks away to the dining room, he hears a buzz of static, and Max and El whispering from the guest room closest to the steps. He knows they're up there on the walkies, he’s just not _that_ big of an asshole to storm up there and take them away. That’d make him too much like his mother. 

It’s their problem if they want to be sleep deprived, not his, so he just sighs and goes back to find Billy. 

Now that everything’s settled, Steve notices just how bad the state of his dining room is. His parents would’ve freaked if they saw the mess all over their formal table, and honestly, he wouldn’t blame them.

He whistles at having to clean all of it up, drawing Billy, who’d already started with cleaning up the games, to look over at him.

Billy smirks at him, says backhandedly. “You know, your mom voice is kinda sexy.” 

“It is _not_ a mom voice. I thought I sounded more like a- like a stern authority figure.” Steve puffs his chest out, “Like Hopper.” 

Billy can’t help but laugh. “No way, I’d say Ruthie Harrington is _much_ more your speed.” 

“You’re such a jerk.” The smile on Billy’s face falters just a little, looking more like his teeth are bared than a sign of his happiness. Steve notices and regrets not choosing his words more carefully. “You okay?”

He seems like he’s ignoring Steve, too busy restacking cards, shuffling them while he does it and shoving them back into boxes, but then he shrugs and answers him. “Got a Tylenol in my system. Ribs won’t start hurtin’ again ‘til morning.” 

“I’m not talking ‘bout your ribs Billy. I mean are you like, socially okay.” Even though he knew it was the ribs thing was a bad cover, it still makes Billy stop what he’s doing to hear Steve say that, but Steve pretends he doesn’t notice the effect and keeps going.“I know you were feeling off tonight and I just want to know what’s up.” 

Scoffing, he looks back down at the table, says, “First you’re my doctor, and now you’re my therapist too?” He’s trying too hard to play it off.

“I’m being serious, B. You’re supposed to tell me everything.” 

“Yeah, I know that. I just- I’m working on it, okay?” 

“Okay. I’m sorry I pushed.” Billy just nods and goes back to putting game pieces and dice in plastic baggies. 

Steve starts helping with cleaning up the mess, dumping out discarded pop cans into the sink, then crushing them against the counter, and balling up chip bags while Billy had a moment to get his thoughts together.

He’s started to wipe down the table when Billy finally breaks the silence with a quiet, “It’s just a lot.” 

“What is?”

“All of it.” He sits down in one of the extra dining chairs ready to be put back out on the back porch. “I’m barely even used to _you_ after three months, and now there’s all of _that_ thrown on top of it.” 

Steve drags one around and sits in front of him, puts his hand on top of his. “I get that.” 

“Do you?” Billy won’t even look at him. “Way I see it Steve, those kids think the sun shines out of your ass. It’s not- you can’t compare us.” 

“Nobody said you could.” He’s trying to be soft as he can. “But come on, Bills. Do you really think those kids don’t like you?” 

When Billy doesn’t answer, Steve continues to explain. “Will was _so_ excited to show you his cards. You let El cheat off of you, like, the whole time. They all had fun.” 

“Trust me, Billy. these kids are spiteful little bastards, you would know if they didn’t like you.”

“That’s not really the _problem_ though, is it.” He licks over his bottom lip, Steve’s words hadn’t worked and now he’s upset. “It’s not the fact that they like me, it’s the _why_ that’s throwing me.” 

“I don’t understand.” 

“Yeah, and that’s my fucking point. Everyone but me seems to just forget November and I just, I _can’t_ , and it makes me feel like-” Billy’s raises his voice a little, not quite so he’s yelling, never yelling at Steve, but makes his frustration plenty clear. “Like _I’m_ doin’ something wrong, and I should owe it to ‘em to move on just because they already have.” 

“If it makes you feel any better, I don’t think Mike has moved on.” Billy barely reacts to his joke with the slightest smile, but barely is better than nothing. “But really though, there isn’t like, a limit for how long you have to adjust or anything. You can take your time.”

“S’just hard. After everything.” 

“I know, Bills.” He “Can you just promise me you’re holding yourself accountable and not blaming yourself. ‘Cause those are two completely different animals.” 

“I could, but I’d be lying to you.”

“Why do you say that?”

“Because there’s some things you can’t just say oops and move on from, Steve.” His tone turns bitter, and they’re starting to go back in the opposite direction. “And I think _you’re_ the one that needs to remember the difference between owning up and pretending it never even fucking happened.” 

So, to keep it from spiraling, Steve keeps his voice flat, his face blank, doesn’t take the bait. Diffuses the situation with a simple, stern, “Billy.” 

“M’just sayin’.” Billy holds his hands up, defensive. 

But Steve doesn’t let up, keeps that disappointment on his face and it makes Billy crack, like he knew it would. “I’m sorry. But that is _exactly_ what I’m fucking talking about, I can’t play nice.” 

“That’s why we’re talkin’ it out.” Billy’d showed his cards, revealed to Steve what was truly bothering him, and now he knows what he needs to say to help. “I need you to understand, it doesn’t automatically make you a bad person to feel confronted by what I said. It’s okay to feel that way.” 

Billy doesn’t say anything, keeps on biting at his nail, so Steve takes his hands in his and offers a solution. “Maybe you can come over more when they’re here, and you won’t feel so, out of place anymore.” 

“I don't know about that.” After this, why should he want to. It’s done nothing but hurt his ego and make him and Steve fight. 

But Steve drives a hard bargain when he says, “Come on, B. It’ll be like a win-win. You get to bond with the kids and get away from Neil, and I get to have a co-babysitter who also happens to be my boyfriend.” 

And Billy agrees with all of those things. Truly, any opportunity to be closer to people who like him for him is one he wants to be a part of, especially if it gets him further from his dad, so he doesn’t deny it. Keeps it ambiguous though, in case he seems too eager. 

“I think I prefer to be your ‘boyfriend who is also a babysitter.’” 

Steve’s face lights up in an instant, “But you’ll do it?”

Theres the slightest tug of a smile at Billy’s lips as he says, “We’ll see.”

Steve smiles at him, “Good. I’m proud of you.”

It makes Billy blush to hear that, makes him want to start the fight all over again, but he knows better, so he settles for an embarrassed “Shut up.” And a kiss on the lips to make sure he did.

Having people want to be friends with him is a strange feeling for someone like Billy Hargrove. With his a temper, an attitude, an ego like his, he spent most of his time chasing people away. 

But all that bullshit just bounces right off the kids, they don’t care about his posturing and his tough guy shtick. All they care about is beating him at card games and getting free car rides.   
  
So it’s a very welcome change of pace, for him, to have the kids accept him into their group. One that’s on his mind when he passes out on Steve’s couch that night, and when he takes Max home the next day, and even still after that, because he finally found a place where he belonged. 

**Author's Note:**

> Sorry this is really late! I had a college thing I forgot about completely and so I didn't have time to finish this any earlier because of it! Sorry if there’s any errors or anything that doesn’t make too much sense, I don’t have time or energy to proof read it this close to midnight!


End file.
